Educational Science

Ariane 5 Rocket Makes Record Sixth Launch in a Year

KOUROU, French Guiana -- Europe's Ariane 5 rocket on Friday successfully launched telecommunications satellites for a U.S.-Japanese joint venture and a startup company that will offer telephone and Internet service throughout Africa after a decade-long struggle for financing. The launch, from the Guiana Space Center here, was the sixth Ariane...

Child Care in First Two Years Greatly Affects IQ

How well children are cared for in their first two years directly affects brain development and IQ later in life, a new study finds. Researchers studied abandoned young children in Romanian orphanages over time and found that those placed in foster care at younger ages had significantly higher IQ's than...

Being hot can lead to more sex. Especially if you're a male ambush bug. These predatory insects are known for camouflaging themselves against flowers, lying in wait to ambush prey. The ambush bug (Phymata americana) is mostly yellow with dark brown or black patches, with the males possessing darker heads...

Mountains of Evidence Suggest Human Evolution Had Rocky Start

Geology may be a long-overlooked, major factor that created conditions favoring the evolution of modern humans. That's the conclusion of geologists at the University of Utah, who detail their findings in next month's issue of the journal Geotimes. It's fairly well-established that changing climate, and thus vegetation, in East Africa...

Plant Extinctions Reduce Ecosystem Productivity

As plant species go extinct, natural habitats will have less greenery overall, a new study suggests, which could allow more heat-trapping carbon-dioxide to remain in the atmosphere. The study, detailed in the Nov. 5 online issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, summarized the results of...

Ariane 5 Rocket Successfully Lofts Horizons-2, RascomStar-QAF1

KOUROU, French Guiana -- Europe's Ariane 5 rocket on Dec. 21 successfully launched telecommunications satellites for a U.S.-Japanese joint venture and a startup company that will offer telephone and Internet service throughout Africa after a decade-long struggle for financing. The launch, from the Guiana Space Center here, was the sixth...

Rare 'Upside-Down' Stamp Sells for $825,000

DALLAS (AP)—A collector from New York has purchased a rare 24-cent stamp depicting an upside-down airplane for $825,000, according to an auction house. The unidentified buyer of the Inverted Jenny stamp was described as a Wall Street executive and longtime coin collector by Heritage Auction Galleries, which announced the sale...

Image Gallery: Great White Sharks

Open Wide (Image credit: © Klaus Jost, www.jostimages.com Used with permission.)An intriguing (and terrifying) look inside the mouth of the great white shark. Catch of the Day (Image credit: © Klaus Jost, www.jostimages.com Used with permission.)Great white shark jumps well above the ocean waters to catch this fish. Just Below...

The Truth about Tooth Decay

Are you worried that your mass consumption of Halloween candy this year will rot your teeth so badly that you will have the smile of a hockey player by next year? Well, don't take this as an invitation to eat a dozen Zagnut bars in one sitting, but there are...

World's Oldest Orangutan Dies

MIAMI (AP) -- A 55-year-old Sumatran orangutan, believed to be the world's oldest, has died at the Miami zoo. Nonja, who was born on the Indonesian island of Sumatra and lived in Miami since 1983, was found dead Saturday morning. Everybody's very sad, especially with an animal like an orangutan,...